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Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 19:03:36 +0100
From: "DI. Christian Gusenbauer" <cg@uhura>
Message-Id: <199501071803.TAA00137@uhura>
In-Reply-To: David Dawes <dawes@physics.su.oz.au>
       "Re: guest account: Yggdrasil information" (Jan  7, 10:51pm)
Reply-To: cg@FIMP01.fim.uni-linz.ac.at
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To: David Dawes <dawes@physics.su.oz.au>,
        jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Re: guest account: Yggdrasil information
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org
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> >> I did say "VGA compatible".  The generic driver in those Xservers
> >> shouldn't assume anything other than "standard VGA" (which I guess
> >> means register compatible with IBM's original VGA).  I think the only
> >> problems I've heard of are with some P9000 based cards (probably using
> >> Weitek's W5x86 SVGA chip), but I'll see if I can follow that up.
> >
> >Well, if I haven't perhaps made my enthusiasm for this clear, just let
> >me now say that I would LOVE to be able to leverage off the X server!
> >I've wanted this for years!  Boy, what you couldn't whip up in tk...!
> >It makes me all giggly just thinking about it.  Ok, so it doesn't.  I
> >lied.  But will it *work*, that is the question.  The burning issue.
> >Can't have an install that 10% of your population can't run.  Wouldn't
> >be very cricket, that.  So unless somebody can point me at a Tk API
> >compatible library that uses curses instead of X (so you could have
> >`install' and `xinstall'), I don't see us even trying to use X based
> >installers unless there was a pretty high success rate!
> 
> I agree.  The success rate has to be very high if there is no text-mode
> alternative.  Perhaps we need to get an idea of what the success rate
> might be.

Maybe we build a database where we include information about VGA cards,
clock rates etc. for a 640x480 screen which work. We can then ask users
at startup (like Micro$oft's Windows Setup does) of the installation
process what card he uses and if it's in the database, we can use the
entry, because we know that this configuration works? I don't think that
monitors have problem with displaying 640x480?

So the success rate *should be* pretty high - or do I miss something?

Christian.
cg@fimp01.fim.uni-linz.ac.at